Yesterday’s Kids Are Today’s New Clients

Schedule a FREE Confidential Evaluation.

By using this form you agree with the storage and handling of your data by this website.

Phone

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

In life, things are always changing; always moving forward. The young grow old, employees become bosses, attorneys become judges, and so on.

In the latter half of this decade, we’ve seen the legal market become increasingly dependent on a demographic that no one ever bothered to take very seriously: millennials.

If your law firm isn’t taking millennials seriously, it’s time for that to change. They’re older, wiser and wealthier than you may think. They’re living life on their own and, just like anyone else, they’re vulnerable to accidents, injuries, and violations of their rights.

According to some estimates, there are more than 80 million millennials in this country, and every single one of them (at least within your market) is a potential client.

Did you know the youngest millennial in the United States, even when using the widest definition of that term, is currently age 20 as of 2017? And the oldest is approaching 40!

In other words, these are the new adults. The future success of almost any business depends on recognizing that fact.

What do we mean by “taking millennials seriously”? You need to be strategically and aggressively marketing your law firm to them.

Why? Like any generation, millennials think and act differently than the generations before them. As decision makers for their own burgeoning households, they are influenced by factors different than those of their parents or grandparents.

Moreover, millennials have a heightened awareness of themselves as a demographic. Having been the subject of countless headlines, studies, jokes, and op/eds (for instance, a recent opinion piece in a national paper unfairly decried millennials’ love for avocado toast as a character flaw and sparked a social media firestorm), they are the most branded generation in history.

Speaking their language and responding to their unique concerns is the key to making sure they ultimately hire your law firm instead of your competitors’. And make no mistake… millennials have plenty of great cases to bring your way. They have insurance policies, they’re in auto accidents, they’re starting businesses, they fall victim to medical malpractice. Many are even parents!

Earlier this month, in Part 1 of this article, we explained why millennials make good hires for law firms and how you can recruit the best young people to yours. Today, in Part 2, we look at millennials as clients and explain why they matter so much… and how you can market your law firm to this generation.

The Unique Challenges of Marketing to Millennials

In a sense, everything you know about advertising changes when millennials become your target. That’s true whether you’re looking at television commercials, inbound marketing on your website, or traditional outbound print ads.

Among those challenges are these fascinating traits of the Millennial:

They are deeply skeptical of traditional advertising messages or anything that seems like it’s trying to sell them something. They grew up in the world of big media. They know all the tricks.

They are even more deeply skeptical of self-serving professionals. Decades of terrible law firm TV commercials did the industry zero favors among millennials.

They drive less. millennials tend to live in urban areas and utilize pedestrian options, ridesharing (e.g. Uber), or public transit more than private cars. They also tend to make more “green living” decisions than previous generations.

Many of them work from home or in non-traditional career settings.

They are more diverse than previous generations. Advertising in Spanish, for example, is more important than ever.

They care about community responsibility, and they expect businesses to do their part.

They know the internet better than you do and will do their research via web, review and social sites before contacting you.

Millennials Love Media

The picture we just painted is a generation weary of traditional media. To some extent, that’s true. But make no mistake: millennials love media.

In fact, according to Nielsen’s Q1 2016 Total Audience Report, “U.S. adults spent 10 hours, 39 minutes a day consuming media in the first quarter of 2016. That’s up a full hour from the first quarter of 2015, and it’s thanks to a substantial increase in smartphone and tablet usage.”

10 HOURS AND 39 MINUTES PER DAY! That is a staggering statistic and it’s crucial to understand what that means.

Millennials are more reachable than any other segment of the population, but they must be reached differently than their predecessors.

How to Market Your Law Firm to Millennials

We could write a whole book on this topic. In fact, we’ve already published a white paper on marketing law firms to millennials and another that looks specifically at marketing to Hispanic millennials.

In general, good pointers include:

Create digital content. Infographics, for instance, are “millennial-friendly” because they’re easy to understand, quick to read and turn up in Google Image searches.

Craft your attorney TV campaigns so that they play well on YouTube too.

Embrace the internet whole-heartedly. You must have a digital strategy, and it must complement your broadcast strategy.

Understand that, for millennials, everything ends on the internet. That means (A) they’ll probably find you through a Google search… but only if your SEO and PPC are on point, and (B) even if they find you through a TV ad, they’ll probably visit your website first… and then decide whether to hire you.

Consider advertising in unconventional places, like blogs popular with millennials in your community. Advertising on popular podcasts can be a good idea too.

Be active and “super present” on social media. To millennials, your social media activity is your pulse. Can they tell you’re alive?

Give back to your community in visible and authentic ways.

Avoid “salesy” messaging.

Ask Our Experts About Marketing Your Legal Services to Millennials

NetworkAffiliates is a team of legal marketing experts with more than 35 years of expertise in the field. We work hard to keep our clients ahead of the competition and the curve, and so we focus only on marketing efforts that can directly boost a law firm’s bottom line.

Increasingly, we find that marketing to millennials is a major key to getting new clients and bigger, better cases. This is a topic for which we’ve invested a lot of time and research toward developing an expertise — and our clients’ results are speaking for themselves.

To learn more about how your firm can target its advertising and messaging to Generation Y, give us a call at 888-461-1016 or simply contact us online.